HITLERCAMBRIDGE A2

QUESTIONS&ANSWERS

HOW MUCH TO STUDY ON THE FINAL SOLUTION AND HOW

WAS IT INFLUENCED BY WW2?

• It is always in regard to the question, always relate your need to write (quantity) as one argument to answer your question.• The most important thing is the nature and timing of the decisions that led to the Final Solution. • The program evolved during the first 25 months of war leading to the attempt at "murdering every last Jew in the German grasp“.• Most historians agree (Christopher Browning), that the Final Solution cannot be attributed to a single decision made at one particular point in time.• "It is generally accepted the decision-making process was prolonged and incremental.“• Write only the main ideas, you won’t have enough time to go in details. Only if this is the subject of your exam question you will write about: responsibilities, early policies, victims, ghettos, atrocities, camps, resistance, allied response, aftermath.

• Wannsee Conference, meeting of Nazi officials on January 20, 1942, in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to plan the “final solution” (Endlösung) to the so-called “Jewish question” (Judenfrage). • On July 31, 1941, Nazi leader Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring had issued orders to Reinhard Heydrich, SS (Nazi paramilitary corps) leader and Gestapo (Secret Police) chief, to prepare a comprehensive plan for this “final solution.” The Wannsee Conference, held six months later, was attended by 15 Nazi senior bureaucrats led by Heydrich and including Eichmann, chief of Jewish affairs for the Reich Central Security Office.• An earlier idea, to deport all of Europe’s Jews to the island of Madagascar, off of Africa, was abandoned as impractical in wartime. Instead, the newly planned final solution would entail rounding up all Jews throughout Europe, transporting them eastward, and organizing them into labour gangs. The work and living conditions would be sufficiently hard as to fell large numbers by “natural diminution”; those that survived would be “treated accordingly.”

• The men seated at the table were among the elite of the Reich. More than half of them held doctorates from German universities! • The men needed little explanation. They understood that “evacuation to the east” was a euphemism for concentration camps and that the “final solution” was to be the systematic murder of Europe’s Jews, which is now known as the Holocaust. • The final protocol of the Wannsee Conference never explicitly mentioned extermination, but, within a few months after the meeting, the Nazis installed the first poison-gas chambers in Poland in what came to be called extermination camps. • Responsibility for the entire project was put in the hands of Heinrich Himmler and his SS and Gestapo.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WAFFEN SS AND SS?

• Waffen SS (Armed SS) was the armed wing of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel (SS, "Protective Squadron"). • Its military formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and un-occupied lands.• In September 1934, Hitler authorized the formation of the military wing of the Nazi Party and approved the formation of the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT), a special service troop under Hitler's overall command.• The SS-VT had to depend on the German Army for its supply of weapons and military training. • More complex explanation on next slide.

• When Hitler, with SS help, purged the SA in 1934 and reduced it to political impotence, the SS became an independent group responsible, via Himmler, to Hitler alone. • Between 1934 and 1936 Himmler and his chief adjutant, Reinhard Heydrich, consolidated SS strength by gaining control of all of Germany’s police forces and expanding their organization’s responsibilities and activities. • At the same time, special military SS units were trained and equipped along the lines of the regular army. • By 1939 the SS, now numbering about 250,000 men, had become a massive and labyrinthian bureaucracy, divided mainly into two groups: • the Allgemeine-SS (General SS)• the Waffen-SS (Armed SS).

• The Allgemeine-SS dealt mainly with police and “racial” matters. • Its most important division was the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA; Reich Security Central Office), which oversaw the Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo; Security Police), which, in turn, was divided into the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; Criminal Police) and the dreaded Gestapo under Heinrich Müller. • The RSHA also included the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service), a security department in charge of foreign and domestic intelligence and espionage.

• The Waffen-SS was made up of three subgroups: the Leibstandarte, Hitler’s personal bodyguard; the Totenkopfverbände (Death’s-Head Battalions), which administered the concentration camps and a vast empire of slave labour drawn from the Jews and the populations of the occupied territories; and the Verfügungstruppen (Disposition Troops), which swelled to 39 divisions in World War II and which, serving as elite combat troops alongside the regular army, gained a reputation as fanatical fighters.

WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MARBURG SPEECH?

• Marburg Speech was an address given by German Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen at the University of Marburg on 17 June 1934.• It is said to be the last speech made publicly, and on a high level, in Germany against National Socialism. This is the SIGNIFICANCE. • Papen spoke out publicly about the excesses of the Nazi regime, whose ascent to power, 17 months earlier when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, had been greatly assisted by him. • In his speech, Papen called for an end to rule by terror and the clamouring for a "second revolution" by the Sturmabteilung (SA – the NSDAP's storm troopers), and the restoration of some measure of civil liberties.

DID BORMANN SUCCEEDED HESS

IN 1941?

• After Hess' solo flight to Britain on 10 May 1941 to seek peace negotiations with the British government, Bormann assumed Hess' former duties, with the title of Head of the Parteikanzlei (Party Chancellery). • He had final approval over civil service appointments, reviewed and approved legislation, and by 1943 had de facto control over all domestic matters.• He was in office from 12 May 1941 till 2 May 1945. He was preceded by Rudolf Hess (as Deputy Führer) and had no succesor as the position was abolished. • So the answer is yes.

WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REICH CHANCELLERY

AND FUHRER'S PERSONAL CHANCELLERY?

• The Reich Chancellery was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called Reichskanzler) in the period of the German Reich from 1871 to 1945. • Hitler's Chancellery, known as the Kanzlei des Führers der NSDAP ("Chancellery of the Führer of the Nazi Party" or KdF) was a Nazi Party organization. • Also known as the Privatkanzlei des Führers, the agency served as private chancellery of Adolf Hitler, handling many different issues pertaining to matters such as complaints against party officials, appeals from party courts, official judgments, clemency petitions by NSDAP fellows and Hitler's personal affairs.• The Chancellery established in 1934 in Berlin as a separate agency which was parallel to the German Reich Chancellery under Hans Heinrich Lammers and the Nazi Party Chancellery (until 1941: "Staff of the Deputy Führer") in Munich, led by Martin Bormann.

WHAT EXACTLY CAUSED AND HAPPENED DURING HESS' FAILED

PEACE TALK IN SCOTLAND?

• On 10 May 1941 he undertook a solo flight to Scotland, where he hoped to arrange peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton, whom he believed to be prominent in opposition to the British government. • He secretly flew alone from Augsburg and landed by parachute in Scotland with peace proposals, demanding a free hand for Germany in Europe and the return of former German colonies as compensation for Germany’s promise to respect the integrity of the British Empire. • Hess’s proposals met with no response from the British government, which treated him as a prisoner of war and held him throughout World War II. • His quixotic action was likewise rejected by Hitler himself, who accused Hess of suffering from “pacifist delusions.”

• Hess was immediately arrested on his arrival and was held in British custody until the end of the war, when he was returned to Germany to stand trial in the Nuremberg Trials of major war criminals in 1946. • Throughout much of the trial, he claimed to be suffering from amnesia, but later admitted this was a ruse. Hess was convicted of crimes against peace and conspiracy with other German leaders to commit crimes and was transferred to Spandau Prison in 1947, where he served a life sentence. • He committed suicide in 1987 at the age of 93.

WHAT DO WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE HOSSBACH

MEMORANDUM, ASIDE FROM ITS CONTENT?

• The Hossbach Memorandum was the summary of a meeting on 5 November 1937 between German dictator Adolf Hitler and his military and foreign policy leadership where Hitler's future expansionist policies were outlined. The meeting marked a turning point in Hitler's foreign policies, which then began to radicalize. It outlined Hitler's plans for expansion in Europe. According to the Memorandum, Hitler did not want war in 1939 with Britain and France. What he wanted was small wars of plunder to help support Germany's struggling economy. • The Memorandum is often used by intentionalist historians such as Gerhard Weinberg, Andreas Hillgruber and Richard Overy to prove that Hitler planned to start a general European war, which became the Second World War, as part of a long-range master plan. However, functionalist historians such as Timothy Mason, Hans Mommsen, and Ian Kershaw argue that the document shows no such plans, and they instead contend that the Hossbach Memorandum was an improvised ad hoc response by Hitler to the growing crisis in the German economy in the late 1930s. JP. Taylor believes that the meeting was merely an attempt by Hitler to drum up support from the military.

WHAT WAS ADOLF EICHEMANN'S ROLE ASIDE FROM PARTICIPATING

IN THE FINAL SOLUTION?

• Otto Adolf Eichmann was Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. • Eichmann was tasked by SS-Obergruppenführer (general/lieutenant general) Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. • Eichmann was to coordinate the details of the final solution; thus, although it was not yet generally known that the “final solution” was mass execution, Eichmann had in effect been named chief executioner. • Thereupon he organized the identification, assembly, and transportation of Jews from all over occupied Europe to their final destinations at Auschwitz and other extermination camps in German-occupied Poland.

• Eichmann did more than merely follow orders in coordinating an operation of this scale. • He was a resourceful and proactive manager who relied on a variety of strategies and tactics to secure scarce cattle cars and other equipment used to deport Jews at a time when equipment shortages threatened the German war effort. He repeatedly devised innovative solutions to overcome obstacles.• In 1960, he was captured in Argentina by Mossad, Israel's intelligence service. Following a widely publicised trial in Israel, he was found guilty of war crimes and hanged in 1962.

WHAT IS THE EXACT WORDING OF THE NUREMBERG LAWS? DOES IT

INCLUDE THE LAW FOR PROTECTION OF BLOOD?

• The Nuremberg Laws were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany. • They were introduced on 15 September 1935 by the Reichstag at a special meeting convened at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). • The two laws were the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans and the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households, and the Reich Citizenship Law, which declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens; the remainder were classed as state subjects, without citizenship rights. • A supplementary decree outlining the definition of who was Jewish was passed on 14 November, and the Reich Citizenship Law officially came into force on that date. The laws were expanded on 26 November 1935 to include Romani people and Afro-Germans. • Answer is yes.

WHEN DID WALTHER FUNK COME INTO THE PICTURE?

• Funk, who was a nationalist and anti-Marxist, resigned from the newspaper in the summer of 1931 and joined the Nazi Party, becoming close to Gregor Strasser, who arranged his first meeting with Adolf Hitler (YOUR ANSWER). • Partially because of his interest in economic policy, he was elected a Reichstag deputy in July 1932, and within the party, he was made chairman of the Committee on Economic Policy in December 1932, a post that he did not hold for long. • After the Nazi Party came to power, he stepped down from his Reichstag position and was made Chief Press Officer of the Third Reich.

• In March 1933, Funk was appointed as a State Secretary at the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.• In 1938, he assumed the title of Chief Plenipotentiary for Economics.• He also became Reich Minister of Economics in February 1938, replacing Hjalmar Schacht, who had been dropped in November 1937. • In the court, in his defense he described himself as a little man “who was frequently allowed up to the door but not in.” • Göring himself told the court that Funk was an “insignificant” subordinate. • The court, nevertheless, found him guilty of crimes against the peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and on October 1 he was sentenced to life imprisonment. • He was released from prison on May 16, 1957.

HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE PARTY

AND THE STATE?

• Simple, do not! Nazi Party was the state, that’s the reason why Germany was not called German Republic but Nazi Germany.

COMPARISON BETWEEN HITLER AND STALIN

• Joseph Stalin began life as a trainee priest, before becoming involved in radical politics and revolutionary groups.• By 1917 he was a high-ranking Bolshevik, playing a leading role in the Russian Revolution and early Soviet Union.• Though not groomed to lead, Stalin was cunning and manipulative and by 1928 was in charge of Soviet Russia.• Like Hitler, Stalin wanted to transform and militarise his country – and was paranoid about threats to his power.• Though they never met or even spoke, Hitler and Stalin loathed each other on political grounds. Both men hoped to buy time to prepare for the future Nazi-Soviet war they knew was inevitable.• Comparison is futile, there are too many criteria so it is up to your judgement and about the QUESTION!

CONCORDAT (TAKING CHILDREN OUT OF GHETTO) AND OTHER

CHURCHES

• The Reichskonkordat is the most controversial of several concordats that the Vatican negotiated during the pontificate of Pius XI. • It is frequently discussed in works that deal with the rise of Hitler in the early 1930s and the Holocaust. • The concordat has been described by some as giving moral legitimacy to the Nazi regime soon after Hitler had acquired quasi-dictatorial powers through the Enabling Act of 1933, though Reichskanzler Hitler himself is not a signatory to the treaty and the treaty does not make mention of Hitler, or the Nazi Party.• Taking children out of ghetto is still debatable, and it is not the real meaning of this pact.

NAZI POPULIST POLICIES

• The Nazis expressed the populist yearnings of middle-class constituents and at the same time advocated a strong and resolutely anti-Marxist mobilization.... Against "unnaturally" divisive parties and querulous organized interest groups, National Socialists cast themselves as representatives of the commonweal, of an allegedly betrayed and neglected German public.... breaking social barriers of status and caste, and celebrating at least rhetorically the populist ideal of the people's community..." • This populist rhetoric of the Nazis, focused the pre-existing "resentments of ordinary middle-class Germans against the bourgeois 'establishment' and against economic and political privilege, and by promising the resolution of these resentments in a forward-looking, technologically capable volkisch 'utopia,'" according to Fritzsche.